Tory donor Anthony Bamford’s company donates £200,000 to Reform UK

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Longtime Conservative donor Lord Anthony Bamford has thrown his support behind Reform UK, with his company donating £200,000 to Nigel Farage’s populist party as it seeks to replace the Tories as the main party of the right.

Bamford, who hosted Boris Johnson’s wedding celebration and has donated more than £9mn to the Conservatives, disclosed on Saturday that JCB would make the contribution to Reform — and one of equal size to the Tories.

“Both the Conservative party and Reform UK believe in small business and it’s for that reason JCB has donated £200,000 to each in recent weeks,” JCB wrote in a statement.

Bamford, a champion of Brexit who helped bankroll Vote Leave, last year revealed he had paid for an £8,000 helicopter flight for Nigel Farage, flying him from Kent to Rocester in Staffordshire, where the chair of the construction and agricultural equipment company is based.

Although Bamford has not donated to Farage’s party before, JCB was an official exhibitor at Reform’s party conference in September. At the launch of Reform’s local election campaign in March, Farage arrived at his keynote speech riding one of the company’s pothole machines.

Bamford, who was awarded a peerage by former prime minister David Cameron in 2013, was among the Conservatives’ most generous backers during Johnson’s premiership, donating more than £3mn over that period.

His company’s donation is being seized on by Farage to demonstrate growing support for his party among business figures. Last week, Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice called for help from the City of London as the party set out plans to overhaul financial regulation.

News of the funding came just days before Farage announced on Monday that he is launching a new group led by Kevin Byrne, founder of Checkatrade, to advise Reform on its policies for small businesses.

“Unlike other party leaders I set up my own company in 1993 so I know how tough it can be,” said Farage, referring to “the burden of legislation” to small businesses such as off-payroll working rules. These ensure that so-called disguised workers, including some contractors, pay the same tax and national insurance contributions as permanent employees.

“It’s the big businesses that shape policy . . . The small businesses don’t even get a look in,” said the Reform leader as he also promised to set up lobbying infrastructure for the “single most ignored group in the country” if his party came to power.

Reform has been struggling to convert its public popularity into large-scale donations, despite claims from senior figures in the party that large Conservative donors were poised to make big-ticket donations.

In the first half of this year, the Tories secured £6.3mn in donations, according to Electoral Commission data, three times the £2.1mn raised by Reform, which has remained heavily reliant on a handful of party insiders including Tice for funding.

Data for the third quarter of this year may begin to paint a different picture. Party treasurer Nick Candy announced last month that he had made good on his pledge to donate £1mn to Reform.

Reform declined to comment.